Issues
← Back to all issuesGranta 108: Chicago
Summer 2009
A special issue celebrating Chicago, and featuring original work by Aleksander Hemon, Nelson Algren, Peter Carey, Don Delillo, Wole Soyinka, James Schuyler, George Saunders, Elaine Showalter, Richard Powers, Neil Steinberg, Dinaw Mengestu, Rich Cohen, Thom Jones and many others
From this Issue
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If God Existed, He’d Be a Solid Midfielder
Aleksandar Hemon
‘I came to this fine country from Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the winter of 1992, a couple of months before the war started.’
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Seiche
Stuart Dybek
‘In memory, Lake Shore Drive is empty, barred to traffic, as if awaiting a tsunami.’
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Khalid
Alex Kotlowitz
‘Early one morning in July 2003 I was woken by a phone call from a young man who I’d known since he was twelve.’
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Saint Jane
Elaine Showalter
‘Addams was hailed as ‘the only saint America has produced’, and a female saint to boot.’
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Chicago’s Great Expositor
Wole Soyinka
‘It is not a complete man now dominating the affairs of the world from a historic mansion appropriately named the White House, although a case can be made that he comes close enough.’
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Once Upon a Time the Zhou Brothers
Bei Dao
‘When I first came to America in the autumn of 1988, I met the Zhou brothers in Chicago.’
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Big Money
Dinaw Mengestu
‘In a city as sprawling and as proud of its architectural grandeur as Chicago, such an emphasis on size seemed only fitting.’
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The Projects
Camilo José Vergara
‘Chicago was the first large American city I visited after I came to the United States from my home country, Chile.’
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Winter
Rich Cohen
‘When everyone was asleep, we put on our boots and waded out into the drifts of Glencoe – a suburban street remade into an eerie winter-scape.’
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An Ofrenda for my Mother
Sandra Cisneros
‘She was a prisoner-of-war mother, banging on the bars of her cell all her life.’
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Easter Island Noodles Almondine
Thom Jones
‘I grew up in a factory town, Aurora, Illinois, some forty miles west of Chicago.’
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Domp-Domp
Ben Ratliff
‘There’s Bo Diddley. Big hips, pointy shoes, glasses. A gap between his teeth, and a bow tie, in 1965.’
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Parrot
Peter Carey
‘You might think, who is this, and I might say, this is God, and what are you to do?’
